Suspended attorney accused of stealing funds from local client

Kenneth Service

MUNCIE, Ind. – An attorney being held without bond in the Delaware County jail is accused of stealing more than $23,000 from a local client.

Kenneth S. Service, 46, of Greenwood, was arrested Jan. 16 on a warrant Delaware Circuit Court 1 Judge Marianne Vorhees had issued last September.

In June 2018, Service was charged with theft, a Class D felony carrying up to three years in prison.

Authorities allege Service took $23,622 from the Delaware Count client between April 2014 and June 2016. A guardianship for that woman had been established in 2003, when she was a juvenile.

The Indiana Supreme Court suspended Service from acting as an attorney in 2017 after he allegedly refused to cooperate in a state  investigation of allegations against him.

Service's legal woes are not limited to Delaware County. He also faces related theft charges in Lawrence, Franklin and Marion counties. 

In all, Service is accused of stealing more than a quarter-million dollars from the trusts of special needs clients.

He also faces lawsuits alleging he took funds from clients in Allen, LaPorte and Wabash counties, according to The Indiana Lawyer, a website on the state legal system.

Service operated the National Foundation for Special Needs Integrity Inc., of Carmel, but was fired by that organization in 2014.

Vorhees issued the warrant for his arrest in the local case last September after he failed to appear for a pre-trial hearing.

A hearing on the local case is set for Feb. 3.

There is also a warrant for Service's arrest in Marion County, where he was charged last May with corrupt business influence and three counts of theft.

His trial on a theft charge in Lawrence Superior Court 1 is set for April 1.

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Suspended attorney accused of stealing funds from local client

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